Prague Abridged

Our 3 nights in Prague were spent under a huge bridge. No, not sleeping outside, just in a suburb of the city where the freeway went over a valley. I was a little freaked out by this, but at least the noise wasn't as bad as I feared.

On our first day, we wandered around the city, as we do every time we arrive at a new place. We found cute little streets and shops, until we got to the tourist center. There are lovely parts of Prague where you can believe that you are the only person who doesn't live on that street, but then there are parts filled with loud tourists, as busy as Rome or London.

An entire day was spent exploring the multiple venues of the Jewish Museum. We had heard it was one of the best sites for learning about Jewish history, so we dutifully read lengthy histories (luckily in English) at 5 synagogues and other historical buildings. The amount of information was a bit overwhelming, but we learned more in 5 hours than we did from Dan in 5 years. One of the buildings included a tour of the Cemetery there, where for hundreds of years all Jews who died in Prague had to be buried in a surprisingly small plot of land. They buried people on top of each other, raising the ground level by several meters, to fit everyone in: a humbling sight.

Prague's islands are amazing, and amazingly empty. On an extraordinarily hot day, we walked across the bridges to a couple of them, and relaxed in the shade among only a few locals, no tourists. But shh, don't tell anyone else it's there, or they might overrun it!

Our last stop was the Petrin tower (the site of the photo from the last post). We climbed all 295 steps (I counted), for an amazing view. Colin's crazy homemade panorama will follow. Under the tower is a museum dedicated to the impressive (fictional) life of Jara Cimrman. He was, amongst other things, an inventor and autodidactic gynaecologist whose origins are hotly debated between Praguese and Viennese historians. It was my favourite museum so far, especially the completely unrelated facts and artifacts, including a newspaper that 'never printed any of Cimrman's articles.'

Of course, no trip would be complete without me going into a music store. I found a cute little used sheet music store near the Petrin tower's funicular, where I could have spent hours hunting through the random stacks of music. Next time, definitely (that list for next time keeps getting bigger).